The present invention is an apparatus that provides a simultaneous measurement of three primary vital signs of a patient. The Dual-Finger Vital Signs Monitor is a convenient, non-invasive, highly accurate, and reliable instrument that can be used to help safeguard the life of a patient who is in grave danger due to potential cardiac and respiratory failure.
Critically ill and seriously injured patients require constant care and attention. Doctors, nurses, and hospital technicians need a continuous flow of information about the many patients under their care. Electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate, and blood pressure measurements are two primary vital signs that indicate the health of a patient. When these two common indices of wellness fall below normal readings, a patient is usually in distress and requires immediate treatment. Dangerous conditions brought about by a cardio-vascular or pulmonary disease, severe trauma, or drug abuse may bring about a failure of the lungs and heart to supply the bloodstream with life-giving oxygen. Such a potentially fatal deficiency can be detected by continually gauging the amount of hemoglobin in the bloodstream that is carrying oxygen. This third vital sign, which manifests oxygen saturation of the blood, is especially critical because a rapid decline in oxygen in the bloodstream is associated with increased risk of patient mortality.
Many devices that measure these three vital signs separately are currently available to the health-care industry. Several conventional systems employ a single flexible membrane which envelops the finger to measure blood pressure or blood oxygen levels. Information about the heart is supplied by separate wire electrodes and leads that measure voltages on the skin of the patient and that are displayed in a familiar electro-cardiogram (ECG). The ECG is a measurement of the changing potentials generated by the electrical activity of the heart. These previous measurements are inconvenient because they require separate instruments and separate cables which connect to the patient. The motion of the patient can also compromise the readings. If the flexible membrane remains constantly pressurized, this constriction can place great stress on the finger and may, eventually, cause tissue damage. These earlier vital sign meters are also plagued by false readings that can cause confusion in a hospital ward. The frequent incorrect reports of patient distress are often attributable to a reliance upon single sensors, which may warn of dangerous conditions based upon spurious signals generated by the inadvertent and undesirable motion of the patient's finger.
The shortcomings of conventional patient monitoring devices has presented a major challenge to designers in the medical instrumentation field. The development of a reliable and highly accurate vital signs monitor that provides a simultaneous measurement of heart rate, blood pressure, ECG, and blood oxygenation would constitute a major technological advance in the health-care industry. The enhanced performance that could be achieved using such an innovative device would satisfy a long felt need within the medical profession and would enable hospital equipment manufacturers to help their customers save substantial expenditures of time and money.